Physiological and neural correlates of worry and rumination: Support for the contrast avoidance model of worry

The current experiments tested neural and physiological correlates of worry and rumination in comparison to thinking about neutral events. According to the avoidance model—stating that worry is a strategy to reduce intense emotions—physiological and neurobiological activity during worried thinking should not differ from activation during neutral thinking. According to the contrast avoidance model—stating that worry is a strategy to reduce abrupt shifts of emotions—activity should be increased. To test these competing models, we induced worry and neutral thinking in healthy participants using personal topics. A rumination condition was added to investigate the specificity of changes induced by the mental process. Two experiments were conducted assessing the effects on different response levels: (1) neural activation using fMRI, and (2) physiological response mobilization using startle and autonomic measures. During worry, participants showed a potentiated startle response and BOLD activity indicative of emotional network activation. These data partly support the contrast avoidance model of worry. Both mental processes showed elevated activity in a common network referred to as default network indicating self‐referential activity.